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tv   Washington Journal Arthur Evans  CSPAN  October 31, 2018 6:32pm-7:34pm EDT

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continues. host: >> host: the relationship between the political climate the ceo of the american psychological association is here which is releasing the annual stress in america survey. how many american say the political environment today stresses the amount versus previous years? . >> a lot of americans are saying they are stressed by the current political climate 69 percent are concerned about the future of the us and that is up from last year with 63 percent which is a high number. one of the things that strikes me that it crosses across
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political lines a majority of republicans and independents feel stressed. >> host: over half of those surveyed believe this is the lowest point in the nation's history that they can remember. at what point do you start to worry as somebody who studies such an impact? . >> our survey ist r showing the trunk political climate is having an effect in one of the reasons we do the survey is to understand what are the stresses they feel but also to educate the public about the stress and the impact on our health that unmitigated stress results in a whole series of physical and mental healthth challenges it's important to know what those stretches are. >> host: the questions for our viewers are you stressed about the current political environment? give us a call.
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the phone lines are split up by the regions. are americans getting better at managing their stressors? . >> what is happening the current environment is causing more stress but also as we mature and get older, we can better manage the stress the highest stress levels are younger a americans. in fact, looking at generations e-between 15 and 21 and we found that age group is stressed at a much higher rate than all of the other age groups on a whole series of questions more of them were
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stressed by the events in the news like immigration and the political issues that are happening. >> and with those sources of the stress 75 percent say mass shooting 72 percent say school shooting 60 percent are stressed about the country's future 57 percent say family separation and deportation. and sexual-harassment assault reports 53 percent. that is cited as a source of stress what is your advice? . >> for young americans in that age group they are not fully mature. parts of the brain that help us with functioning that we need to manage this kind of stress are not fully developed
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until about age 25 see you have young people see the same things that older americans are seeing but they are not quite capable. but over time we learn how to manage stress much more effectively but until you have people exposed to the same things we are exposed to but not having those same coping skills or mechanisms and the abilities that is one of the things that happens as w we mature that as a country we have to be concerned about that. >> host: talk about the role of social media for all americans as a source of stress but also a coping mechanism for some. >> social media cuts both ways and in a survey roughly half of the respondents of generation z-letter in particular social media was a support about another half
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said it also causes stress. so you have to be concerned about the high proportion of young people that it is a source of stress and the other thing is the amount of social media that we take and relates to our stressed. it's important to manage that and cut it off like a soap opera. you y can listen to days and it's easy to catch back up. >>caller: thank you. i was in thewa gulf war. i was under a lot of stress at that time and i remember when i came back i was under a
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different type b of stress that was every day life and i noticed my body was not affected the same way. that was the first time i realized how stress affects me physically personally and emotionally. as far as the political climate ii have noticed, i do feel stressful about it. just thinking aboutus the topic i think my main area of stress is that the president lies so much but congress doesn't do anything about it. they don't check him than the people that support him
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ultimately they are supporting the lies. it is frustrating when it seems like you can do anything about it. as far as socialyo media and the stress level how that affects people, i do know that i like to make a quick comment i recently started on twitter. i noticed it is a stress reliever just to vent and put it out there because if you can express youryo frustration and get the emotions out it helps. that is a strange thing about social media. >> thank you for your service we are seeing a number of very important things and that you recognize the stress that we feel does have an impact on our bodiesou physically and the
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physical state that is important to manage it but you also said that you are seeing things happening in the political sense so i'm feeling you don't have the ability to act on that. but i would say you do have the ability you have the ability to vote or be active politically. what we do know is that the more we can take active and take proactive action it helps to mitigate our stress to be engaged and act on those issues. >> host: i will show the viewers about the survey how people are dealing with a political climate. those who plan to deal with it by voting in the midterm election older americans 87 percent of those responded they plan to vote with the boomer generation is
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76 percent generation x-letter. 68 percent is 54 percent. >> but then that is a dead issue that promote my - - that is most affected by and least likelyte to vote it's important when things are stressing us so the message is young people in the age group that have the ability to vote get out and vote. >>caller: good morning. i'm stressed every single day. and my issues of the truth of
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the president's accomplishments also they tell a half truth about what he has done and anything positive. i mean anything positive the president does is switched around just this morning watching the today show how much tax money it will cost to bring the troops down to the southern border. they twist everything every day i have to turn it off and watch only c-span. when i hear a representative or speaker on the floor i hear everything they say. not justiv the 52nd piece that will run on the news. but just not what the president will say they pick out a little piece of what they said they don't tell the whole truth.
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>> host: it's okay to turn those other networks backu in on when you go back? . >> maybe entertainment but not for politics. the entertainment segment or the weather. really first thing in the morning is a bash to our president that is the main agenda i already voted. i am working the polls this year to volunteer in my town. i enjoy it. and everyone who is a legal citizen to get out and vote on love to have conversations with friends on bothri sides. i went down the ticket republican this year even though i am an independent of
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us disgusted with democrats not doing anything but stalling to say no to anything even if it's in on their agenda than the line about the health care issues to take away if you have an illness the republicans would take it away from you. >> i would say you are doing a lot of things we recommend people do to manage your stress your conscious you are limiting what stresses you and taking action and being engaged politically. and one of the things i really liked is that you are talking to friends who have different opinions on both sides the way that you framed it. we need more of that i think it helps to increase the civility in our country and is very healthy in terms of us managing.
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congratulations. >>caller: good morning. but i have never seen anything to cause so much disruption that the entire country was about to fall to be so great and so smart calling people names are disrespecting if anybody could get away with it. i'm afraid what what has
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happened to the united states saudi arabia but not for this country. . >> let me ask you one of the questions in the survey. is this the lowest point in the nation's history that you can remember? you have been around a long tim time. >> i don't ever remember so much disruption if this country is so bad then get out. >> one thing the caller points out is that we have an unconventional t president right now with his supporters and detractors. and unconventionality and predictability leads to uncertainty which does cause
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stress. so that element in that characteristic can be a source of stress. >> thousand oaks california good morning. >> thank you for taking my call. i have a couple of comments. first of all, from someone far older and wiser than myself once advised me in polite company avoid discussing politics and religion that is actually worked the past several decades i don't get stressed out because i don't discuss it with anyone in polite company. also with social media that always helps but people say we are not polite.
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and then to go to step from further to see you shouldn't discuss politics especially at thanksgiving because it ruined your appetite and during your meal it ruins the taste just discuss it after because then the tradition. again avoiding the word stress. >> thank you for the call. >> that is great advice. >> why did you feel you needed to start this 12 years ago? . >> we understand that stress is related to our health status unmitigated stress causes depression, physical conditions like heart disease or obesity. so as a profession that's concerned about americans and mental health issues like
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stress are linked to that we have to get a handle on that. >> host: has your association study the psychological stress from children separated from their parents? . >> we have we have a larger one - - a large body of research that shows separating children from parents is extremely stressful and for younger children it is particularly stressful. we use that research to advocate for new policies that would limit that or not allow young children to be separated from their parents but with the more recent policy issue forhows that's not good children american psychological association. apa.org. maryland good morning. >>caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call.
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i just wanted to say i'm not as old as the previous colors. i'm 37 however i have not seen the. country this way. ion am from california and the climate is completely different. my stress comes from the fact even though i am a veteran and i went to school and worked hard as a registered nurse, i was diagnosed with ms. i have challenges. because i have those challenges i automatically feel i don't have a lot of control. now i get into politics than that rolls over to the fact it seems like the government is out of control because those
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that are against our morals and norms or anything we have ever seen that makes me believe everybody else must build the same way so with me not being able to get out or do for myself even though i have in the past i'm concerned something will happen they will take my medical away from me then what do i do? there are so many other people in my situation. that's why i'm starting to get anxious about what will happen. >> thank you for your service. i do think there are things that youou can do even if more limited mobility you could still be engaged and certainly go over the internet reach out
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to your elected official but also with the ability to manage stress. the other thing to be conscious about is your social network there is a lot of body of research that shows the more people in our lives the larger our network the better we do with health status and social status and to the degree you don't want to isolate the reaching out to supportive friends and family and those that consistently have reported that friends and family are a major source so i would encourage you to challenge those people to be supportive. >> here is a headline from "the washington times" from
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the midterm campaign a record for negative ads just since labor day 569,000 negative ads for those races flowing past 2010 records 50000 negative ads according to a study released by the media project. >> the reason we have so many is because people believe thatev they work but the point of the survey is that it is a cost to our health so ultimately we have to decide if we reinforce that behavior or not. >> host: arizona good morning. >>caller: good morning. i would like to ask if you have people look at the selection of music and how that can help you?
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we should ration our news intake five minutes to a total 24 hour period listen to more music and can you explain the difference when you know, things are impacting you or if you have all these issues and you don't know which is pressure in which a stress? . >> i'm not quite sure if i got the question. but stress is the result of feeling the pressure that we cannot cope with. the stressors or the pressure is what causes us to feel we may not have the ability to control what is happening to us. the point is we need to be aware of those things that
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cause stress to us than mitigate those things that you have some great examples e of four learn how to manage the results of that stress. >> host: vermont go ahead. >>caller: i'm 63 i have a fear the g.o.p. party will try to cut social security i worked my whole life for benefits and now i need the money. our water and now the health care's every day i worry about health care benefits everything was mandated with the aca with insurance through obama care but i do have blue cross blue shiel shield.
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but with the g.o.p. to try to privatize they say they're not going to but they will. especially if they win the house and the senate. >> can youtl talk about what are the emerging sources in your survey? . >>ue things are happening and the way i describe it that how wewe take that in is not benign with these emerging issues comingng up are affecting the stress levels and having an impactct on our health. >> 42 respondents adding personal debt and 20 percent
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turned to housing instability 24 percent discrimination. >> the issue was a surprise almost one quarter of americans refer to as an issue to be broke out by race and ethnicitya and with a much higher rate. >> host: pennsylvania good morning. >>caller: good morning. i'm calling to say that i'm stressed out because of this president hear the way he runs the country he is mentally unfit to run the country he has such a big ego problem and other l things like that he cannot function as a president and it's up to congress to see the man reallyio doesn't care
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about the whole of america not just the black or white folks care. really doesn't the main objective to me is to get ahead but the democrats don't stand a chance with this redistricting. in the way they carry on it's just a shame. >> host: you been doing the survey 12 years can you compare the finger-pointing under president trump versus obama? . >> the finger-pointing i think that is increasing in culture. but we look at the overall climate and all of the political leaders contribute to that climate some may argue some contribute more but it is
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an ecosystem and thus we have to be concerned but we have to do something about that. >> american psychological association how long have you been studying the issue of stress? . >> since 2007. >> since 2007. w'e . . . .io
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>> caller: also have worked throughout many areas, including los angeles. there's a certain amount of not ignorance but to ignore the obvious. i ask you in your findings, in your study over time, have you done anything that has analyzed anxiety that people feel, not just in this climate where, you
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know, this person that sits in the white house, you know, i think -- i appreciate his candor. i don't mind his honesty. his honesty is what makes people i think at times -- justifies the irrationality. have you done any studies in particular with young people and the long-term effects that this causes on them, again, because i believe it is societal as much as anything? >> the caller is pointing out a couple important things. we do look at the data. we look at the data by gender and by ethnicity. our data showed that consistently individuals who are from various ethnic groups experience stress at a much higher rate than whites in the survey. that's been a consistent finding. also find that females, women, experience stress at a higher rate than men. even though we have seen overall stress rates come down for the
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population as a whole, there's still this discrepancy between men and women, and there's still a discrepancy based on race and ethnicity. and so we know that these things are not affecting people in the same way. it's disproportionate for some groups. and i think as the caller is pointing out, it is important to recognize that. >> rachel is up next in texas. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i was just going to say that i voted for obama twice. and this last election i did not vote, but my husband did vote for trump. and we never argue, but when it comes to politics, we argue. like yesterday, i had him to google the unemployment under obama and how he created jobs, and then i had him to google trump unemployment, and all those jobs they claimed that he has created was a lie, and he got very upset. we started arguing. and another thing about this
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wall, i've seen it on c-span that the wall will never be built for the fact that the landowners do not want to give up their property, and it will be in court for years, and the wall will never be built. and that's another lie they tell. >> rachel, before you go, rachel, how many times a week do you and your husband argue over politics? >> caller: well, when i had voted for obama, he would come in, if i had the news on, he'd say turn it off. i don't want to watch that. i can't stand to watch him. now when he comes in, and he wants to tell me everything that trump's done and i argue with him because i watch c-span. >> rachel, have you ever thought of not talking about politics with your husband? >> caller: it's kind of hard because i'm a head strung woman, and i've never let anybody run over me. and especially when i think i'm right. and that's the only time we argue. but he's not going to get the best of me. i will put him in his place.
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>> that's rachel in texas. dr. evans? >> well, you know, she's pointing out an interesting fact, you know, that i think as a country we have lost the art of debate. right? so one of the things that contributes to the incivility i believe is that we haven't had -- we don't have the skills as a country to debate very controversial issues from a dispassionate standpoint. if you look at the models that we have, the role models that we have on television, people tend to devolve into attacks, attacking the person as opposed to attacking the argument. i'm not saying that about rachel but as a whole that's a way a lot of our political debate goes. because we don't have that skill of talking about controversial difficult issues in a dispassionate way, we end up attacking each other and that's
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something that's a skill and something i think we can change. >> dr. evans is the ceo of psychological association. you can check out some of the results we talked about this morning. thank you for your time. thank you. >> we're live in florida. president trump scheduled to speak to a campaign rally there momentarily. when he gets started, we will have live coverage here on c-span 2. ♪
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we continue with this discussion focusing on the state of california. as you continue to call in, we're joined for this discussion by political science professor at the university of redland. thanks for getting up early for us this morning. we talked about some handful of toss-up races. the political report has 13 races in play this cycle from toss up one way or the other. is that unusual for that many house seats to be in play in a midterm election cycle? >> i think in any given election, there are going to be a handle of races that are toss ups because whoever the minority
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party is, they are going to be going after those seats as hard as they can. in this cycle, we see the democrats really going after the republican seats. if there's even a whiff of vulnerability, and in some cases, there's a chance that the republicans if there really is a large democratic turnout, that some of those races where in which the republicans have been very strong, that they might be overtaken. so if those do actually turn, then i think those would be a good sign that the house is going to turn democratic. >> we've shown our viewers a map of where these districts are that we're focusing on in california. a large number located in southern california. what does that tell us about the political fault lines in california today? >> well, the fault lines have actually been shifting a little bit. we see that democrats really do have a plurality of registration in the state. there are somewhere about 45% democratic registrants in the
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state, but we've also seen that for the first time republicans are actually a minority as far as registration goes and they have been overtaken by those who call themselves no party preference voters. what we have been watching -- if you watch the registration numbers, really california has been moving into the democratic column. although we're not an absolute majority democratic state. as you can see, we're not over 50% democratic. but we are democratic at least in terms of overall -- the top number of democrats who are registered. so what we see playing out is here in southern california, that maybe in the last few decades, republicans have had an advantage. democrats have been slowly overtaking those numbers in several districts. and so that's being reflected in the competitiveness of these races. >> california certainly considered a reliably blue state.
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when was the last time it was a red state or even a purple state? >> well, the last time we actually had a strong republican unified government, meaning that both the assembly and the senate, which are our state legislatures, two chambers, and the governorship held by a republican was back when ronald reagan in the 1960s was the governor. and ever since then, we have had -- well, let's see about -- democrats sort of started to take over after about the 1970s in the legislature. and they've held it ever since. and there's only been a couple times when the legislature has gone republican, just a very small punctuation whereas the governorship has flipped back and forth between the republicans and the democrats, almost regularly. but in terms of registration, the state has registered democrats since pretty much
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since 1932. we were actually -- the democrats lost that absolute majority to the no party preference voters. they have been actually taking over since about 1989 or so. but overall, we're pretty democratic state. so today if you look at the -- at the statewide executive, we have all democrats who have got the major offices. that includes people like the governor, the secretary of state, the attorney general, and so forth. >> taking your calls as we focus on california in 2018 in the house races there that could help decide control of the house of representatives. some 13 races considered to be in play this cycle. five in the most competitive categories. phone lines if you want to join the conversation, if you are a california resident, 202-748-8000. all others 202-748-8001. professor of the university of
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red landtds will be with us -- redlands will be with us until 10:00 this morning. start with matthew calling in from emerson, new jersey. go ahead. >> caller: thank you. good morning. the facts here with regard to california's increasing crime rate are important. when president trump called democrats the party of crime, the facts show he's right because the democrats in california have been giving early release to convicted criminals, which has led to no one's surprised an increase in innocent citizens there being affected, assaulted, robbed, etc., by criminals who have been given this early release, and also when democrats decriminalize drug possession as they have in california, massachusetts, and some other states, this also, the facts show that drug addiction, drug
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abuse, and crime rates have gone up, and i would appreciate it if these good people could address that. >> that's matthew in new jersey. professor, do you want to talk a little bit about criminal justice reform in california? its impact on the politics there? >> yeah, absolutely. california has had a problem with housing its inmates, and at the state level, for the past few decades, we've been overstuffing our state institutions, that is, our jails and our prison, state prisons with people who have been convicted of crimes, and as a result, we haven't actually been -- i should say, we haven't actually been funding those jails and state prisons like we should, so we had overcrowding, and as a result, the federal government stepped in and said you need to do something to reduce that crime population. this really put jerry brown and the legislature at a disadvantage because they face a
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lot of constituents who don't want to build new prisons in their backyards. so we haven't had any new prisons being built with the exception of one in the stockton area, that's a hospital prison. so the result has been very overcrowded -- a lot of crowding, and the federal government telling us that we need to get -- we need to reduce those prison populations, and if not, they were going to be released anyway. the federal government was going to find a way for us to reduce the prison population. so the legislature and the governor came up with a few ways to try to reduce the prison population. and some of that has been -- some of that does involve early release. some of that has been to decriminalize certain kinds of crimes. and as a result, such as, drug possession for marijuana, and as a result, what we have seen -- what we have seen is there has been a slight up tick in petty theft and lower level property
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crimes. at the top we haven't seen huge increases in other kinds of crimes, like murder. the murder rate is still historically pretty low. if you are a victim of one of those crimes, it certainly doesn't feel that it is going down. >> bringing it back to 2018 campaign, can you remind viewers about the top two primary system in california and what impact it had on targeting districts by the two parties in the general election? >> yeah, absolutely. so california has a really interesting kind of primary system. we moved to this system just a few years ago because the citizens voted for it. in our system, it's actually very technically called a voter preference primary. in a normal primary, that means that republicans would turn out for their own candidates and maybe if there are ten people running for an office, the republicans would vote for the person they want to move on to november, to the general election.
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and the same for democrats. we scrapped that system. so in the top two primary, all the voters are allowed to show up to the polls on election day, and all of the candidates for a particular office are listed on the ballot. the top two vote getters will move on to the general election. so that could be two democrats. it could be two republicans. or any mix thereof, including the minority parties. what we found is that had led to more intra-party elections, where you have democrats versus democrats. in fact, there are about 19 of them in this coming election. there is only one race in which there's a republican facing off against a republican. and that's in the congressional district. so there are -- there are some interesting kinds of consequences of having a top two primary. but it does mean that -- i should back up just a little and say that the reason we did this was to hopefully moderate the
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legislature, which was shown to be pretty liberal because it's been dominated by democrats for such a long time. and the hope was that where you have -- where the race maybe is a foregone conclusion and a democrat might be winning anyway, that if that democrat, who is a front-runner is actually being challenged by somebody who is more moderate, then when it comes time for the general election, the entire electorate would weigh in and you would have republicans joining democrats to maybe elect more moderate democrats, for example. and there's some mixed results about whether or not that's happened. but for the most part, the california legislature is slightly more liberal than you'd find in other states. >> what was that one district where a republican is facing off against a republican in the general election? >> yeah, that would be congressional district 8, where paul cook is facing tim donnelly. tim donnelly is far more right wing than paul cook is, and paul
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cook holds the seat now. tim donnelly formed his own minuteman kind of group to try to patrol the border. he's very activated by immigration issues. and so he's challenging paul cook. that district kind of runs along the interior of the state. it covers a lot of territory. and if you have the district map, you will see that it's a lot of area, but it's very sparsely populated. >> was that a place where democrats had hoped to compete this cycle, or was this a reliably red district? >> reliably red district, yeah. it wasn't going to turn. >> michael waiting in pensacola, florida. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i'm interested with devin nunes and darrell issa seat that's been vacated. >> sure. well it is a kind of race where
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it is very unlikely that the democrat will take over for a couple of reasons. i think some of these states -- these races that are in the central valley, for example, the san joaquin valley, and northern california, such as, the congressional district number 22, where nunes is, there is a republican edge in a lot of these districts. and so it would be surprising in some of them if the democrat actually won. nunes is not really -- it is considered one of those congressional districts that is in play, should the democrats turn out in force. but he has a couple of factors going in his favor. one of which, and this is actually applies to most of the candidates in the central valley. there's a very high latino hispanic population and they don't tend to register at high rates and they don't tend to turn out at high rates, and that's actually favored the
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republicans in places where they might be edged out by democrats. as far as the darrell issa race, that's down here near san diego. that's an open seat race like you mentioned. and there are a couple -- >> what district is that one? >> that's 49. -- actually, that's not 49. i think it's 40 -- i can't remember the number offhand. i will have to check on it. but as far as that one goes, mike levin is facing off against diane harkey, and that is a neck-and-neck race. issa almost lost -- they had to do a recount at the last election, and he barely won. so issa stepped down after having been in congress for many years, and a very powerful republican at that, leaving the race open. it's opened up this very competitive race. and so those two candidates are truly neck-and-neck. >> i've got the map of all 53 districts in front of me.
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the 49th district there. >> 49th, thank you. >> steve's up next in california in lake elsinore. good morning. >> caller: good morning. good morning, professor. i'm actually fairly close to you. i've already voted. my wife and i have already voted. i also was an ex correctional officer, that guy from new jersey, i retired as correctional lieutenant. let me tell you, i voted -- i used to vote republican, but i turned independent actually. >> uh-huh. >> and i had voted up until jerry brown republican. but we had trouble getting a budget through with a republican governor, and because the republican assembly -- i mean, democratic assembly, i voted for brown. and i was alive when brown was governor, back in the 70s, and i
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knew what he was going to do. he was going to tax. but i voted for him anyway because we were having trouble getting the budget, and he did a really good job. i did vote for brown, and i did vote for the democrat this time also. and also in this district. so -- actually that was a vote against trump. but anyway, i thought i'd throw that in. >> steve, thanks for the call this morning. >> professor, on the role of independents in the state? >> yeah, well, it turns out that we do as i have been mentioning, we have these -- this category of registration called no party preference. and that means you can actually register to vote. you don't have to register with one of the major parties. and that has been a category that's been growing over time. and it's steadily growing. it tends to be a place where like this particular caller mentioned, a place where you can actually go, if you don't want to be registered with one of the
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major parties. and those people actually tend to vote the way that they lean. the one thing that political scientists have found is that if you tend to lean toward one party or the other, that's really how you do vote in the end. it doesn't hold for all times and places. as you just heard this caller say, that person's maybe been shifting certain votes over time. but in general, what we find is that independents in california do support democrats, and that's of course one of the reasons why even though it's a plurality democratic state, you do get solidly democratic majorities holding on to those statewide offices, both in the legislature and also at the statewide executive offices. >> gail is in san diego. good morning. >> caller: good morning, thanks for taking my call. you already touched on the point that i wanted to raise which is about the ethnicity, the impact of ethnicity on the votes here
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in california. when you look at a red, blue map of the state, you will see that it's the central valley that is essentially the red part of the state, despite the fact that the majority population there is ethnically hispanic. people who get elected from those districts also often have hispanic names, even though frequently they are from the republican party. and so, for example, someone mentioned devin nunes. he is portuguese. his farm is in iowa. >> yeah. >> caller: but nevertheless, he has been elected over and over again, despite the fact that the republican party is obviously anti-immigrant. they are anti-hispanic.
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and their policies tend to hurt hispanic people here in california, tend to be lower income overall, and the republican policies hurt them. so i'm just curious to know what you think that mix of income, ethnicity has to do with the fact and the name recognition of hispanic republicans, being elected. what that mix means for this election? >> that's actually a really great question. all of the factors that you mentioned do really weigh into the way a person identifies first and foremost with a party. and the democratic party tends to be more heavily latino, a good mix of ethnic minorities, for example. and people who are of middle and lower income tend to go towards the republican party, and there's also a gender gap so that the democratic party has been attracting more women than men.
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when it comes to the central valley, actually if you want to even just talk more generally about the political geography of california, you know, you can almost take the state and then draw a line down the middle, and the coast goes blue. the coast goes pretty democratic most of the time. the inland counties are where republicans have gathered and live and have settled, and so the inner part of the state tends to be red. but even in places where you do have latino/hispanic majority or coming up on a plurality here, those are places where you either have people like nunes who do as you say have -- are able to appeal to those constituents, either because of kind of name recognition or because they do actually make appeals in the way that they take policy stances. so for example, you have people
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like jeff denham who is in a district where he's been able to say i support dreamers. if that's the only message you hear as a voter, you might say that's actually something i support as well. now, the entire voting records of the republicans are clearly not democratic voters. they are not those that appeal to democratic voters, but they are in fact in 30 second campaign ads, pretty well able to sound like moderates and to make appeals to those people who identify across the aisle. so -- but just to get back to your main point, the social identity factors, that is, how we identify as people really do help drive our partisanship in some pretty fundamental ways. >> you mentioned 30 second campaign ads. that last caller was from san diego. that race featuring duncan
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hunter trying to hold on to his seat is in the san diego area. this is one of the ads being run in that race. this is the group vote vets encouraging voters to vote against the congressman who is also a veteran. >> they say you can't pick your family members. >> a republican congressman and his wife are accused of spending $250,000 in campaign funds on themselves. >> whatever she did, that will be looked at too, i'm sure, but i didn't do it. >> completely throw his wife under the bus. hunter allegedly staged a liaison with an individual described as someone who had a quote personal relationship with hunter. >> you can't pick your family members, but you can pick your congressman. vote hunter out. >> that's one ad playing in that 50th district race. here's another, congressman duncan hunter going after his democratic opponent. >> -- working to infiltrate congress, using three different names to hide his family ties to
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terrorism. his grand father masterminded a massacre. his father said they deserved to die. a palestinian millennial democrat doesn't get the support from the people of san diego. >> he is being supported by care and the muslim brotherhood. this is a well orchestrated plan. >> a risk we can't ignore. >> i'm duncan hunter and i approve this message. >> professor, want to get your thoughts on those ads, starting with the second one we showed. usa today's op-ed pages, their editorial board calling that second ad one of this year's five worst political ads. >> right. well, this is one of those -- those competitive races where there's just a scorched-earth policy being executed. you see that hunter who had been a -- in this seat.
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that particular race has been a possible seat to flip because he has been indicted on misusing $250,000 worth of campaign funds. he was caught using some funds to buy personal items, for example, borrowing from his campaign, to pay for some personal things, maybe his kids tuition, that sort of thing. and so these indictments have been levied against him, which of course he has denied. but at the same time, he's being -- he's facing off a man who has a mexican mother and a palestinian father. so hunter's been exploiting those facts about him to paint him as somebody who is a threat to the united states. and so you see these campaign ads that just focus on some of -- probably some of the -- some issues or some items that
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are going to be very easy for people to remember, but also strike fear in people's hearts. now, he is a christian, he is not a muslim, and he didn't know his grand father. so this is one of those particular ads. one of the reasons why it's actually been called one of the worst ads because it is clearly guilt by association. so what you see here is duncan hunter who actually has been indicted and the other candidate who has not been indicted, but it is leading to some very fiery ads on both sides because it looks like hunter is quite vulnerable at this point. >> taking your calls as we focus on house races out in california, one of our house battleground states that we're focusing on this week on "the washington journal". we are joined in this segment by professor renee van vechten this morning, political science professor at the university of redlands, with us until our
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program ends at 10:00. jan is waiting in fredericksburg, virginia. go ahead. >> caller: hi. i just want to say i am so sick of the hypocrisy of the trump people. you better beware, if you are not born in the united states and you declare -- [inaudible] -- he can throw you out. beware of what you want. i'm so sick of it. now they want to take the native americans and throw them out because they -- [inaudible]. it is ridiculous. i was born right here. he can send his wife back home then. >> that's jan in fredericksburg, virginia. this issue of birthright citizenship that came up yesterday, i wonder your thoughts of how it might impact races and the political dialogue
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out in california. >> well, the 14th amendment does contain the phrase that all persons born here in the united states soil are united states citizens. it's been like that since about 1868, when the 14th amendment was ratified, and it actually has been vetted by the united states supreme court in a couple of different cases, one dating back all the way back to 1898, where a chinese person, that is an american of chinese descent was born in san francisco to parents who weren't allowed to be citizens because at that time we had alien land laws which -- ♪

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